For reasons indicated by co-blogger Eugene Volokh (here , here, and here), Jonathan Turley, and others, the resolution does indeed justify gross infringements on freedom of speech. As they point out, it threatens free speech not only in the authoritarian states that initially proposed it, but also (though to a much lesser degree) in those Western nations that tend to incorporate international human rights law into their domestic law. While the Resolution probably doesn’t count as international law in and of itself, it is the sort of document that many experts claim can be emobided in “customary international law” over time (see the discussion in this article, and also Eugene’s take here).

It is unlikely that the US and other Western nations would have agreed to this resolution if not for the influence of authoritarian Muslim states that they sought to appease. Thus, the influence of repressive regimes helped promote the enactment of “human rights” law that legitimate their abuses and could potentially weaken protection for freedom of speech and other important liberties in the West.

Given the great influence of repressive regimes over its content, it is likely that international human rights law, as currently developed, does more to legitimize repression than to protect freedom. This is especially likely in light of the fact that repressive regimes can usually disobey those aspects of such law that might genuinely weaken their grip on power. By contrast, liberal democratic states are likely to take the rule of law more seriously and therefore to actually obey repressive elements of human rights treaties that they ratify and commit to incorporating into their domestic law.